


summer's kiss upon the sky

by cashewdani



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Consensual Infidelity, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 01:22:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashewdani/pseuds/cashewdani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She should have never come to DC in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	summer's kiss upon the sky

DC’s hot. All the time. When April leaves for work in the morning and when she gets home, and when she goes and sits on her couch at night because she can’t sleep. She looks at the building across the way and wishes she still smoked, sweat beading up on the back of her neck.

 _This is your life_ , she thinks. _This is your life that you’re living_ and she has no idea what she’s doing.

She should have kept one of Andy’s t-shirts. 

She should have never come to DC in the first place.

###

Ben lives in her house in Pawnee but she sees him more here than she ever did back home. He buys her lunch. Sends her text messages. Invites her out after work.

And April hates it. 

He’s lonely, she knows, they’re both lonely, but this makes it sadder almost. Being lonely with Ben instead of just lonely by herself. Having to listen to him talk about aliens and epic journeys and JJ Abrams because at least someone’s talking to her, but also, ugh, he likes the worst stuff.

She gets used to watching TV with his commentary and on the nights he sends her home early, sends them all home early in fact, while he’s still sitting there in the dark office, just one light on at his desk, she finds herself calling her mother to fill the silences.

April never thinks to call Andy. She doesn’t know what that’s about.

But then, the next night, Ben’ll be there, drinking a brand of beer she despises and making comments about the characters on some sitcom like they’re real people and she doesn’t think to call Andy any of those nights either.

When Ben goes home, always at least an hour after the first time he comments on the time or how he’s got some stuff to work on, April distinctly feels the lack of him in the apartment.

It’s disgusting.

###

The plan was for Andy to fly out Friday after work, spend the weekend in her bed, and head back from Dulles on Sunday, because that was cheaper, and she felt shitty enough asking her parents to buy yet another thing for her.

But then there were the thunderstorms, and the tornado warnings, and it’s still hot, somehow, even with all the rain.

Andy calls her and says he’ll sleep at the airport on standby if she wants, but she tells him to take a voucher and go home because the weekend’s already shot and the thought of seeing him for just a few hours is worse somehow than not seeing him at all.

He sounds disappointed and the sky through the window in Ben’s office matches her mood exactly. She sighs while hanging up, closing the tab for weather.com which she’s been staring at since yesterday afternoon in case the satellite image shifted. She opens a spreadsheet Ben isn’t going to ask for until the end of next week instead and starts doing her data entry even though everyone else left to battle traffic at least 45 minutes ago.

She’s still there when Ben comes back from some dinner function, working on column L. 

“Hey,” he says, quiet, but it still snaps her out of auto pilot with a jerk. “What are you still doing here? It’s late.” She glances outside and it’s just as dark now as it was at lunch, but the clock on her computer tells her it’s apparently almost 9. “I thought Andy was coming tonight,” he says, and it’s not Ben’s fault that this city is humid or that planes can’t, for some reason, fly through storms yet, but it kind of feels like since he’s the first person she’s seen since everything went to shit that she should punch his fucking face in.

“It’s raining outside, dipshit,” she tells him, gesturing at his umbrella. “Do you want my husband to die in a plane crash or something?”

“God, no. Why would you say something like that?”

“Because you’re an idiot, Ben.” She starts shutting the computer down, reaching for her bag at the same time. “And I’m an idiot for being here with you.” It’s kind of like she’s walking out on a fight with a boyfriend or something, and it’s weird, but she’s too fucking angry to fixate. “I quit,” she tells him, because who cares that she’s twelve columns into a spreadsheet that has hundreds of rows, or that this’ll just be another thing that makes her mother tells her she shouldn't give up so easily.

“April, come on.” He starts to put his things down, like he’s going to stop her, and she can’t let that happen.

“No, okay? I’m not going to come on. I have no idea what I’m doing here!” She’s trying to shove things from her desk into her bag that may or may not belong to her, she doesn't even know. “I don’t care about this. I don’t care about a congressman or a career in politics and I have a husband at home, and a dog, and seriously, Ben, what am I doing here?” She’s holding a stapler in one hand so tightly that it clunked a staple onto her desk right around when she mentioned Champion.

He sighs like he’s worked a 14 hour day and just can’t take one more thing right now. “Don’t quit.”

“Ben, tell me what I’m doing here.” She’s starting to sound more like Janet Snakehole than herself. Shrill. Because if she’s wasted all of this time...

“Just...” he runs his hand through his hair. “April. Don’t quit.”

“You don’t know what I’m doing here either!” She thinks about the late nights, and the number of Mouse Rat gigs she’s missed, and the fact that she stepped foot into a comic book store last week because Ben asked her to. “Fuck. Seriously, fuck.” She drops the stapler and it’s loud as it smashes into the keyboard and then the desk. “I've got to get out of here.” She honestly feels like she might start to cry.

“Let me drive you back to your place.” He puts his hand on her shoulder, and she jerks away from him, her purse hitting her hard on her hip.

“I can drive myself!”

“I know, but you’re upset and it’s raining and I know you won’t call me when you get home, so, please, let me drive you so I don’t have to think about you lying in the morgue all night.”

She can argue or she can get out of here, so she just heads for the hallway, and she can hear Ben behind her, turning off lights, locking doors, while she’s waiting for the elevator. She stares at the numbers lighting up, watching them blur and come into focus, but they’re clear when Ben comes to stand next to her and her cheeks are dry.

They get in his car and he turns on the air conditioner and the wipers and the headlights. With the rain pouring down, it makes the perfect, quiet kind of noise that April loves. She closes her eyes and leans on the passenger window, counting the turns to her apartment. When they've got two left, Ben says, “You’re the only person in the office who doesn't go on Facebook while we’re at work.”

“Because Facebook’s stupid now that I got timeline, Ben.” But, she opens her eyes and rolls her head the other way, towards him.

“You work hard. I know you try to make it like you don’t, but I've seen the stuff you’re turning in, and it’s good. Sometimes even really good. You meet your deadlines and you help me out and I’m pretty sure you’re the only reason that anyone else in that place respects me.”

“You’re confusing fear and respect again. If you threaten to show them your action figure collection, you won’t even need me.”

Looking straight ahead at the car in front of them, the brake lights flushing his face, he says, “I could replace you as my assistant, if you really want me to, I can’t stop you from going, but I’d miss you if you went back now.”

She wants to mock him, but she can feel the tears back in her throat, so she just stares at the side of his face. He’s got five o’clock shadow, and she wants to know what Ben looks like with a beard.

“I know that sounds stupid, and you didn't come to DC to stop me from feeling lonely, but, yeah, I’d like being here less without you.” They’re on her block now, pulling up to the curb, and she still doesn't know what to say. She’s not supposed to care about Ben feeling lonely. “Call me if you need a ride to get your car.”

And she quit tonight, and she meant it, but she already feels like this is going to be one of those things they just pretend never happened, like the time she dozed off on his shoulder after a congressional meet and greet. “Or to work on Monday.”

“Yeah, or that.” He smiles, in that tired, Ben way.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

She cries into a bowl of ice cream in her underwear not long after she gets inside but wakes up on Saturday and decides to text Ben in case he also wouldn't mind getting coffee. He wouldn't it turns out. And she somehow doesn't mind seeing the _Avengers_ again, but when she comes out of the theater, the air is steamy and she has three voicemails from Andy.

One of them is him trying to get Champion to say her name and part of her feels all over again like she should have packed last night.

###

The campaign goes on and she and Ben keep emailing one another different pictures of robots with the subject line Congressman Murray Photo Op. She’s already made it onto the second page of Google results trying to find something to beat the Iron Giant he sent when he knew she was already going to be at lunch. She shouldn't have used Crang in that guy’s metal belly so early in the game, she knew that when she sent it out, but it’s just that she’s seen that comparison picture of Honey Boo Boo and her mom on Reddit a bunch the past few days.

And while she’s trying to remember what the name of the robot is that said, “Number Five Alive” in that movie she used to watch on Sunday afternoons when she was a kid, he sends her another e-mail. It’s the Svedka robot lady and he typed underneath, _Drinks tonight?_

_The Congressman’s wife is inviting me or you are?_

_I've got news._

She looks up, but he’s on a call and looking away from her, so she just figures she’ll wait until he has a second.

###

Drinks after work usually means stopping at the liquor store or going to this place that reminds them of the Snakehole, even though neither of them has ever admitted it out loud. But he takes her this time to a place that’s nice. Really nice, like he maybe heard about it from one of the people in the office who hasn't funneled a beer in their life.

“Do you think they’ll let me stay with the whole history of arson thing?” she asks, loudly, while they’re being lead to a booth.

“Stop.”

Sliding in, she says, “I don’t get what we’re doing here.”

“I got a job offer today.”

“Well, congratulations,” April tells him, without much enthusiasm. She’s been counting the days still left on her calendar, and they’re supposed to have only eighteen left.

But Ben doesn't seem to notice her lack of excitement. “The Congressman wants me to come on and work for him full time if he is in fact re-elected for another term.”

April asks, “Does Leslie know?” toying with her silverware.

“Not yet. I just kind of wanted to enjoy it for a little while.”

Her stomach drops a little more, hearing that. “Are you accepting?”

“I might be.” He looks at her with this dopey, hopeful expression and April knows that he will even if he thinks he’s still not sure.

“I don’t want to talk about this any more,” she tells him, looking around for anyone who can bring her something with alcohol in it.

“Okay,” he agrees.

It’s quiet and awkward then and she wishes they were somewhere that would have some game on a big screen TV or repetitive dance music coming in through speakers bigger than her refrigerator.

She has one drink with him and then pretends that Andy is calling and she has to go. She wants to text Leslie but settles for sending one to Ann that just says, _check on your girlfriend tonight_ , but doesn’t hear back.

###

Ben comes into work the next day in the same suit with bleary eyes and two cuts on his jaw from his razor. She brings in the morning papers, and a cup of coffee, and the two messages that were on the voicemail when she got in before him.

She swore she wasn’t going to ask but the first words out of her mouth are, “How’d she take it?”

“She broke up with me.”

“I felt that was a possibility,” April tells him, standing awkwardly with her hands clasped behind her back.

“Yeah, me too.” He takes a sip from the coffee cup and grimaces like he burned his tongue.

“You really want to work for the Congressman long term, Ben?” she has to ask.

“Seems like I do. Thank you for the papers,” he says as a dismissal, and she goes to walk back to her desk.

She spends the rest of the morning trying to find a gift she could send him that serves both as a congrats on your promotion and sorry about your breakup. At lunch she just gets him the biggest chocolate chip cookie they have in the basket at Potbelly but when she gets back to the office, he’s in a meeting. She leaves it on his desk when she goes home for the day, but it’s still there the next morning.

###

Andy tells her that she has to be there for Ben even though he hurt Leslie. And so she tries. She really tries. She rents a different _Batman_ movie from Redbox every night to watch with him and lets him show her clips of _Wallace and Grommit_ on YouTube, but it takes less than a week for her to decide she can’t take this anymore and they’re just going to drink.

She puts on the George Clooney _Batman and Robin_ and tells him they’re just going to have a sip every time they can see his Batsuit nipples. He assures her they might die.

It’s a risk she’s willing to take.

At least the coroner’s note will read alcohol poisoning instead of murder/suicide.

###

He was right to be concerned because the movie isn’t even over yet and her chest has that feeling in it that it’s going to separate and fly away from the rest of her. She just feels so loose. April’s lying with her head kind of on Ben’s thigh, watching the TV through the bubbles in her gin and tonic.

“I think I might make out with Jim Carey,” she tells him. “Like maybe.”

“That’s because you’re one of those girls who’s watched _Eternal Sunshine_ too many times.” Ben’s tie is off, and his shirt is unbuttoned so she can see the undershirt he has on underneath. Her dad always wore undershirts when she was a kid. Andy’s lucky he owns any shirts, forget about ones to go under other ones.

“Uh uh. It has nothing to do with that. I think I just saw _The Mask_ at some weird point in my sexual development.”

Ben rests his glass on her shoulder and there’s a cold circle there that feels so good. “Cameron Diaz looks amazing in that movie.”

“How often have you masturbated to her?” April asks and Ben kind of laughs and chokes and sputters all at the same time.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“We’re not talking about this,” he says with a strained voice and another gulp of his drink even though Batman is not on screen.

She swirls the ice around in her glass. “Come on, we’re both adults. You especially.”

“I don’t keep track of something like that.” He pauses. “Plus, I was young then, so who knows.”

She bites down on her pinkie. “I think I’ve masturbated to Jim Carey 11 times in my life. Ballpark estimate.” 

Ben does that thing where he closes his eyes and shakes his head and tries to teleport away from whatever she’s subjecting him to. “I can’t believe we’re talking about this.”

“Is it because you’re scared I might tell you I’ve done it thinking about you?”

“April, come on.” She likes how tight his voice sounds. His exasperation. 

“There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s perfectly normal.”

Now he’s started rubbing his temples, the last ditch effort at using The Force or some other kind of bullshit. “You’re married. To Andy. Who I happen to really like, oddly.”

“It’s fine though, Ben. Really.”

“How is it fine?”

She swore that she was never going to talk to him about this, but, she’s drunk and whatever. “Because I’m even allowed to sleep with you if I want to.”

“What?” he asks, even though she’s pretty sure she got it out without slurring.

“Yeah, Andy and I talked about it when you moved in, and as long as you pay us rent, I’m allowed to sleep with you.” She’s more aware at this moment that that’s his leg which she’s resting on than she was a minute ago.

“How is that seriously something you had a conversation about?”

“Ben, he’s my husband,” she says in all seriousness, but he laughs. He laughs like he just realized how absurd it is for them to be drinking large amounts of alcohol while watching the worst superhero movie ever just because they’re alone in DC and spending an inappropriate amount of time together. He keeps laughing in a way that makes her feel like her life is silly, and so she sits up to look at him, and he’s still going.

“I can’t even believe the two of you,” Ben says, and April knows the last time someone counted her as a two, it wasn’t with Andy, but with Ben. When the woman at the supermarket said, “You two have a nice night,” and they had. They’d eaten nachos and compared iPods, and April's aware he’s not laughing at that right now, she just feels like he is, but it still sucks.

“I’m not a freak,” she says, and something about her tone must make him want to touch her hair.

“I didn’t say you were a freak.”

“I feel like a freak.”

He starts to say, “You’re just...” but she cuts him off by kissing the side of his mouth. She’s thinking about him with a beard again, the stubble on half her lips, and the chill of ice cold tonic water on the other, and she doesn’t care what she just is.

She leans back to look at him, and he’s looking at her, and this isn’t wrong, really, but she still doesn’t know how to feel about it besides guilty. His fingers stop playing with the ends of her hair and instead pull her back in, so she can kiss him for real.

They’re going to have to go work tomorrow, and she’ll have to tell Andy what happened, and she’ll never get to know if Mr. Freeze’s punishment is being sent to to Washington so he can melt into a puddle immediately upon crossing into the city limits.

Ben groans as she climbs into his lap, her face feeling flushed and hot, and she thinks for the millionth time this summer about how this is her life and she should have never come to DC in the first place.

Outside the sun is setting and Ben's tongue is in her mouth.


End file.
